Mona wanted to scream but she had to keep quiet, she had to keep still. She knew her mom would be angry if she even shifted her buttocks an inch. Yet the feeling of something slimy and hard slithering up her thigh made her shiver involuntarily and the more she tried to suppress her terror, the more she began to whimper. She could sense her mother’s disapproving aura sitting just next to her. The Satanic priest rang a bell that had been stolen from a Catholic church and stared into her terrified face. She clamped both hands over her mouth to stifle a scream as the hard pliable shaft entered her and penetrated ever deeper.
The priest approached and she begged him to help her with her eyes. He knelt before her, took off her robe to reveal her nakedness and stared at her growing belly. When he saw the last of the creature disappear under her, he fell back with a yell.
The circle of praying worshippers broke as everyone either rose or leaned to see what was going on. The organized chants about them turned into a hubbub of I-think, I-thought and What-was-it.
The priest Lucian raised his arm and his congregation of ninety-nine fell into silence. He went down on his knees before the girl, and without turning away from her sweating panting face, he asked the mother beside her, “Sister Deanna, you have always been faithful and loyal. Who is this child to you?”
“She is my daughter, Father.”
“You are indeed blessed by Satan.”
“Oh blessed be, all these years I’ve considered her to be nothing but trouble.”
“She is pregnant?”
“No, Father, she is not. I put the robe on her myself, and she was not this large.”
“That is true, Father,” Thirty-year-old Tom said, “Her belly was flat before the mass started.”
You should know, Lucian thought, you fondle every underage child in the congregation and demands it as a right from their parents. He asked Mona, “How do you feel, child?”
She glowered at him with red-rimmed malicious eyes. “Weakling! Liar!” she yelled into his face.
“Blessed be,” the whole congregation said and fell on their faces.
Mona walked up to the middle of the circle and began to trash the altar, smash the bell, throw the blood and wine filled goblets then picked up a stone as large as her head to crush the remainder of the altar into dust.
“Blessed be,” the congregation said.
“I hate you all, you pathetic fools!”
“Blessed be.”
“You should all die and burn in hell.”
“Blessed be.”
She screamed out of frustration then ran out of their midst. They chased after her but could not catch up and soon lost her to the brambles and pitch dark.
Mona ran and ran, for the rage burning inside her would not let her stop. She plunged into a rushing ice cold river and swam along it until she reached a rocky bank two miles down. She stood up, with water steaming about her like a fog, and made her way to an abandoned cabin. The door was off its hinges, and as she approached, the wind went ahead of her and swept the interior clean of dusts, soil and leaves. In the middle of the floor was a pentagram painted in whitewash and emitting light that was neither warm nor friendly.
“He is a crook, a liar. A doer of petty evils,” she muttered under her breath.
The cold light said, “He is but one of many. He lures small-minded sinners and gives them leave to practice their little crimes and little hates. And he calls it my work.” A puff of fire shot out of the center of the pentagram, as though Satan had spitted.
Mona said, “I will show them. I will show them not to mock You, my Master, with their pointless half-hearted imitation of evil.” The light about the pentagram dimmed. “I will show them that the only way to honor You is to create despair to such a state that there shall be no hope and no light. God will be abandoned, god will be declared uncaring, and everyone, everyone will turn to You because only You can make their despair meaningful and purposeful. They shall lose all faith and fill the emptiness of their soul with fear.”
She moved away from the pentagram and sat in front of a hearth. It instantly blazed into flames. She touched her belly tenderly, then leaned back with her knees outspread and squeeze her stomach muscles to push out its contents. Blood gushed into the fire, followed by a baby. Mona fell back into a faint.
#
It was morning when Mona woke, for she could see light filtering through a pane of glass. Something snuggled close to her and she looked down to find a new-born baby wrapped in a white blanket. She sat up and adjusted the shirt she was wearing. The baby whimpered, prompting her to pick him up. Immediately he turned to her breast and made sucking noises. She pulled up the shirt and he latched onto her nipple and began to suckle. She looked about the warm cabin, taking in the soft palette of fur she was sitting on, the bolted door and pile of firewood by the hearth. There was even a basket of bread and root vegetables in one corner. She looked down at the beautiful golden baby in her arms and tried to smile. But she couldn’t, for she felt dead inside. After feeding him, she lay back down and fell into an exhausted sleep.
The baby pushed aside his blanket and stood up. Then he stroked her hair and hissed into her ears. “You are my mother in this world. When you wake up next time, you will eat because you have to stay alive long enough to feed me and validate my existence. You will protect me while this pathetic weak body of mine needs protection. You can die only after I have no more need of you.” The baby then lay back in his blanket.
Mona woke like an accident victim emerging out of her stupor and crawled towards the food basket. She bit into a dirt covered raw potato and tore off a piece of bread. Though she wanted to spit every mouthful out and die of starvation, she couldn’t, she just couldn’t.
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